I woke up from the surgery sobbing. As the anesthesia wore off, I groaned, “Did I really do this?” It was 2019, and I had just donated my left kidney to a stranger to save his life. Early that morning, I walked into an operating room as the stranger walked into the room next door. This is known as an altruistic or Good Samaritan donation, and it’s fair to say that it’s an unusual thing to do: a tiny percentage of living kidney donations in my native U.S. are of this type.
As with anything unusual, people have questions. When it comes up, the most common question is, “Why?” Frankly, I’m puzzled by the question. Why does someone do something? In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a man lies wounded and dying on the road. Everyone who walks by ignores him. A man—from Samaria, a faraway place of a different race and religion—stops and takes care of him, asking nothing in return. I’m not a Christian, and I didn’t know that story when I first tried to explain myself. I wish I had.
Instead, I’ve just listed the facts: It’s a relatively safe procedure with a high chance of success; thousands of people die each year in the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant due to a lack of donors; consider the awesome science that allows us to take a kidney from one person and give it to another; and the bizarre fact that you only need one.
What fascinates me is that most people find my reasoning convincing, yet say they would never donate a kidney. It is telling that I never ask them why: an unwillingness to give a kidney to a stranger is the default, and therefore normal, position.
I found the experience mostly miserable. I’m not sure what I expected, but it was pretty much standard medical procedure: tests, paperwork, waiting in waiting rooms. The surgery date was pushed back a few times, which caused a lot of problems for my work and my finances. I had no patience with the transplant center for these annoyances and delays. I may have even been rude. I feared I was dangerously close to having my stupid kidney rejected because of my obnoxious personality. That would be humiliating.
My biggest fear, however, was that I would not pass the psychosocial assessment, an important step in the screening process. With my history of depression, I thought there was a real chance that I would be rejected. This made me feel weak and perhaps damaged as a person. I started to get really stressed.
The fact is that living kidney donation is a major operation, and major surgery is stressful. I discovered this myself as the date of my surgery approached and I was overcome with fear and anxiety. I knew that the statistics were on my side and that my fear was irrational. Why couldn’t I just think about the recipient instead of myself and stop being such a baby? This was the frame of mind I was in as I was escorted into the operating room five years ago.
When I woke up in the recovery room, a kind nurse wiped the tears from my face. I think I was overwhelmed with relief that I hadn’t hesitated. The nurse assured me that the surgery was a success and that my kidney was “beautiful.” I went home, recovered, and immediately sank into a fairly long depression. Maybe my body needed time to recover, maybe it was a huge setback after an intense experience, or maybe it had nothing to do with the donation.
I will never meet or know anything about the person who received my kidney, and that’s fine with me. I always wanted to remain anonymous. I never wanted anyone to feel like they had to thank me for a gift that is simply incomparable. I just wanted them to feel like someone else was willing to share some of their burden, and that they would have a better life. I hope that’s what happened.
When people tell me what I did was amazing or heroic, I don’t know what to say. I’m still amazed that more people don’t take the chance to do this. But now that I know how scary and stressful surgery is, not only for the person undergoing it, but for everyone around them, maybe I understand it a little bit better.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that being human means being all the people in the Good Samaritan story: we’re the person who needs help, we’re the people who don’t help, and we are – or can be – the person who is occasionally able to overcome his or her self-centeredness to do something that is truly in the best interest of someone else.
That day in 2019, all I could feel was relief that it was over and shame that by not being brave, calm, and selfless all the time, I had not “done it right.” Today, I finally feel proud that I did something that was not easy for me, that had a real price, for the benefit of someone else who needed it. I still don’t know if I am a good person. But I know that I did something good that day. And that is good enough.
Penny Lane is a documentary-maker. Her film Confessions of a Good Samaritan explores the science, ethics and philosophy of altruistic kidney donation through her experience as a donor.